Al Capone Biography

Born: January 17, 1899
Brooklyn, New York, New York
Died: January 25, 1947
Palm Island, Florida
American gangster and criminal

Al "Scarface" Capone was an American gangster who rose to
power during the Prohibition era (1920–33), when the United States
banned the production and sale of liquor. His vicious career illustrated
the power and influence of organized crime in the United States.

"Scarface" is born

Alphonso Caponi was born on January 17, 1899, in Brooklyn, New York. He
was one of seven children born to Gabriel and Teresa Caponi, who came to
the United States from Italy in 1893. His father was a barber. Capone
attended school through the sixth grade, at which point he beat up his
teacher one day and was himself beaten by the school's principal
afterward.

Like many other American children at the time, Capone was taught that
the main purpose of life was to acquire wealth and that the United
States was the land of opportunity. He discovered that prejudice (unfair
treatment) based on his ethnic background made it difficult to succeed
in school and that others looked down on the children of immigrants and
members of the working class. Angered by the gap between the American
dream and his own reality, Capone began to engage in criminal activities
as a way of achieving success in what he saw as an unjust society.

Capone worked at odd jobs for a while but found his calling when a
gangster named Johnny Torrio (1882–1957) hired him to work in a
bar owned by Torrio's friend. Torrio knew Capone did not mind
violence and often had him beat up people who were unable to repay
loans. Over time, Capone learned more and more about the criminal world.
During a fight in a bar he received a razor cut on his cheek, which
gained him the nickname "Scarface." He then met a woman
named Mae Coughlin (1897–1986), with whom he had a child named
Albert Francis Capone (nicknamed Sonny). Capone and Coughlin married a
short time later, on December 18, 1918.

Success in Chicago

In 1919 the U.S. government approved the Eighteenth Amendment to the
Constitution, a law prohibiting (or preventing) the manufacture, sale,
and transport of liquor. The same year, Capone fled Brooklyn for Chicago
to avoid a murder charge. In Chicago he joined the Five Points Gang and
quickly moved up its ranks. He became the top assistant to the
gang's leader, his old friend Johnny Torrio, who had set up
operations in the city. Capone worked as a bartender and enforcer for
Torrio and was arrested many times for assaulting people, but
Torrio's influence saved him from jail.

After Torrio fled the country, Capone found himself in control of part
of the bootlegging (illegal supplying of alcohol) in Chicago that had
sprung up after Prohibition (preventing by law the production, sale, or
transportation of liquor). The citizens of
Chicago had not been in favor of Prohibition. Many of them were more
than willing to break the law by purchasing alcohol. Capone took
advantage of this attitude and conducted his business openly. As he
would tell reporter Damon Runyon, "I make money by supplying a
public demand. If I break the law, my customers … some of the
best people in Chicago, are as guilty as me."

Capone protected his business interests, which also included gambling
houses, by waging war on rival gangs. During the St. Valentine's
Day massacre in 1929, seven members of a rival gang led by George
"Bugsy" Moran were shot to death in a Chicago garage.
Protecting these businesses also often involved either bribing or
beating up public officials. As Capone's profits continued to
grow, he began to act as if he were a well-to-do businessman rather than
a vicious criminal. Many people, including members of the police and
city government, admired him. Between 1927 and 1931 he was viewed by
many as the real ruler of Chicago.

The truth is that Capone was totally unworthy of admiration. He was a
cold-blooded criminal who killed hundreds of people without a second
thought. He paid off mayors, governors, and other elected officials to
allow his crooked operations to continue. He could even influence
elections by having members of his gang intimidate people into voting
the way he wanted. Capone's reign of terror gave the city of
Chicago a reputation as a gangster-infested place that it would hold for
years, even after he was long gone.

Menace to society

Most of the rest of the country (and even some people in Chicago)
correctly regarded

Al Capone.
Reproduced by permission of

AP/Wide World Photos

.

Capone as a menace. In the late 1920s President Herbert Hoover
(1874–1964) ordered his secretary of the treasury to find a way
to put Capone behind bars. Capone had up to this point managed to escape
jail time for any of his crimes. The government's decision to
crack down on him just added to the problems he was having. His profits
from bootlegging had started to decline as a result of the coming of the
Great Depression (a period from 1929 to 1939 during which nearly half
the industrial workers in the country lost their jobs) and the ending of
Prohibition.

After detailed investigations, U.S. Treasury agents were able to arrest
Capone for failure to
file an income tax return. Forced to defend himself while being tried
on a different charge in Chicago, Capone's testimony regarding
his taxes did not match previous statements he had made, and he was
found guilty of tax fraud. In October 1931 he was sentenced to ten years
of hard labor, which he served in a prison in Atlanta, Georgia, and in
prison on Alcatraz Island in California's San Francisco Bay.

Capone suffered from syphilis, a disease passed from person to person
through sexual contact. The disease can affect the brain if left
untreated. Capone became physically weak and started to lose his mind.
As a result, his power within the nation's organized crime system
ended. Released on parole in 1939, Capone spent the rest of his life at
his estate in Palm Island, Florida, where he died on January 25, 1947.